ST. LOUIS — A man is facing charges after his girlfriend's 3-year-old son died while he was taking care of the boy.
Timothy Robinson, 33, was charged with second-degree murder and abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death after the death of Emmanuel Ware on Dec. 10. Robinson was taken into custody three days after the boy's death on an unrelated robbery charge.
At around 2:20 p.m. on Dec. 10, St. Louis police officers were called to the 2600 block of Rutger Street for a report of a child being struck by a car.
When officers arrived, they found Emmanuel unconscious and not breathing inside a home. He also had bruises throughout his body, police said.
The boy was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Shanice Moore, the boy's mother, said the man she was dating, who is not Emmanuel's father, was watching her son for a few hours at a friend's house while she went to a job interview. According to a probable cause statement, she said that she left around 11 a.m. and when she came back shortly after 2 p.m., her son was lying unconscious in the home with multiple abrasions to his head. That's when her boyfriend told her the child had been hit by a car.
Moore went on to say that she initially believed the story about what he said happened to her son.
“He told me he got hit. You know and apparently that never happened but I had to tell the police something because they were asking me what's going on and I'm like I don't know. But this is what he told me,” Moore said.
Robinson left the house while Moore was calling police.
An officer met with him on Dec. 14 after he was taken into custody. He claimed he had taken Emmanuel with him to the gas station to get cigarettes and the boy was struck by a black Monte Carlo while crossing Park Avenue near Ohio Avenue.
The investigation revealed no evidence of a traffic accident occurring in the area. Police also reviewed surveillance footage from the dollar store and found no evidence that the two ever entered the store. An autopsy revealed internal injuries that weren't consistent with a toddler being struck by a car.
The investigation is being handled by the child abuse and homicide divisions of the St. Louis Police Department.
